Gladden grew up on a farm, worked in a small-town newspaper office, and attended Williams College, Williamstown, Mass. After serving as religious editor of the New York Independent (1871–75), he held pastorates at Springfield, Mass. (1875–82), and Columbus (1882–1918). He aided in the exposure of the “Tweed Ring” (politicians who seized control of New York City’s treasury and subsequently plundered it of millions of dollars), while serving as acting editor of the Independent.

Gladden opposed both socialism and classical economic theory and sought to apply “Christian law” to social problems; some consider him the first American clergyman of note to approve of unionization. In 1904 he was elected moderator of the National Council of Congregational Churches and soon afterward made the startling proposal that the denomination’s foreign mission board should reject John D. Rockefeller’s gift of $100,000 on the ground that it was “tainted money.” Gladden, who stressed the simple and direct nature of the gospel as well as its practicality, wrote some 40 books, among them Applied Christianity (1887) and Social Salvation (1901). His poem “O Master, Let Me Walk with Thee” became a familiar hymn. His autobiography, Recollections, was published in 1909.